r! I did not dare to show my face at a
window, for fear of catching a stray ball or being forced to enter the
National Guard; [for] they would have it I was a man full grown, French,
and every way fit to fight. And my mamma was as bad as any of them; she
that told me I was a coward last time if I stayed in the house a quarter
of an hour! But I drew, examined the pistols, of which I found lots with
caps, powder, and ball, while sometimes murderous intentions of killing
a dozen insurgents and dying violently overpowered by numbers...." We may
drop this sentence here: under the conduct of its boyish writer, it was
to reach no legitimate end.

Four days of such a discipline had cured the family of Paris; the same
year Fleeming was to write, in answer apparently to a question of Frank
Scott's, "I could find no national game in France but revolutions"; and
the witticism was justified in their experience. On the first possible
day they applied for passports, and were advised to take the road to
Geneva. It appears it was scarce safe to leave Paris for England.
Charles Reade, with keen dramatic gusto, had just smuggled himself out
of that city in the bottom of a cab. English gold had been found on the
insurgents, the name of England was in evil odour; and it was thus--for
strategic reasons, so to speak--that Fleeming found himself on the way
to that Italy where he was to complete his education, and for which he
cherished to the end a special kindness.

It was in Genoa they settled; partly for the sake of the Captain, who
might there find naval comrades; partly because of the Ruffinis, who had
been friends of Mrs. Jenkin in their time of exile, and were now
considerable men at home; partly, in fine, with hopes that Fleeming
might attend the University; in preparation for which he was put at once
to school. It was the year of Novara; Mazzini was in Rome; the dry bones
of Italy were moving; and for people of alert and liberal sympathies the
time was inspiriting. What with exiles turned Ministers of State,
Universities thrown open to Protestants, Fleeming himself the first
Protestant student in Genoa, and thus, as his mother writes, "a living
instance of the progress of liberal ideas"--it was little wonder if the
enthusiastic young woman and the clever boy were heart and soul upon the
side of Italy. It should not be forgotten that they were both on their
first visit to that country; the mother still "child enough" to be
delighted w